


recognition

by jessamoo



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:57:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2486993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessamoo/pseuds/jessamoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for the prompt "bash and kenna meet as children but don't catch each others names"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time he sees her she is skinny and knock kneed, she wobbles about happily as they play blind man’s bluff. Her arms, already long at eleven, reach out in front of her, her delicate fingers grabbing the air.

Her wild tangle of warm brown hair flips all about her face but she doesn’t swipe it away.

There is a bright spark in her, it’s obvious even then. She somehow makes him smile without really doing anything.

When she catches someone and flings the blind fold off with a flourish and a smug smile, he sees a strange, intelligent elegance in her. She was still young, though barely younger than him. But it was obvious that one day she would make the most graceful lady of the court.

He doesn’t know who she is, the gaggle of girls that accompanied the princess had only arrived the day before and had been kept away from everyone till now.

But they were just children like any other. Bash already knew this about royal children, his brother was one after all. And Francis played happily with his future wife with all the innocence of a child.

Bash didn’t even pay attention to the wild Scottish princess. He tried to peer through the running people to catch a glimpse of the girl with brown hair but couldn’t quite see her.   
He only caught a glimpse of the hem of her white dress or a ribbon in her hair.

As he peered into the din, stepping back from the game, he couldn’t place why he wanted to see the girl again. He just did.

Then he feels someone step beside him.

Then there she was. Face flushed, hair messy, right next to him.

When he looks at her in sudden surprise, she lets out a little giggle.

“I think they’re doing a dance next. Do you want to join in? I think they just let anyone in.” she shrugs with a grin.

Bash realises that she doesn’t know who he is. She is being friendly enough despite the fact she obviously thinks he’s some serving boy or something.

He looks down at himself and realises why. He had been play fighting with Francis earlier and had been unceremoniously flung into the dirt and he hadn’t bothered to change.

“I’m not very good at dancing.” He smiles.

She pouts at him. “I’m sure that’s not true.” She wrinkles her nose, leaning in conspiratorially “It’s easy really, you just copy everyone else.”

Bash laughs a little at her. She was funny in a way that most his age were not – in a clever way.

He is about to ask her name when she is dragged off into the dancers by one of the other girls before he can.

Despite not planning on it, he dives in after her.

They all jump and dance together and despite the fact he wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t very good – and she laughs and smiles encouragingly at him, sometimes pointing subtly when his foot was in the wrong place.

She seemed kind. She was prideful and smug, but she was friendly and happy and it was something he always wished for. He had never been allowed to be too carefree. He didn’t have as much responsibility at Francis of course, but he had been taught to be careful. Not only as a bastard that everyone looked down on, but as a pagan.

He wondered if this girl would be as kind to a pagan boy as she had been to a servant.

Years later he meets a sad Scottish girl with long hair. He suddenly remembers that other girl, who had been bright and beaming before the world got to her. He wonders what happened to her. He wants to see that girl in everyone, he wants to see that spirit in the women before him. The same places lived in them, surely the same spirit must.

And one night as Kenna is humming whilst brushing her hair, she proceeds to tell him about how she had always loved dancing, ever since she was a little girl. Ever since one sunny day where she had danced with a serving boy and realised dancing was a time when everyone could be free.

Bash sat bolt upright in bed, smiling at his wife in awe.

He finally recognised her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> continuation for the prompt "kenna wonders why bash never asks her to dance. he admits he never learned how to dance properly - he tells her that he was that serving boy she met. Kenna teaches him to dance in their chambers."

“You never ask me to dance you know.” Kenna carries on, oblivious to his reaction to her story.

He feels a sudden clarity in himself. All his life since that day in the summer he had wondered and searched for a memory, an impossible girl lost to him through time and circumstance. And now through some miracle she had been returned to him. He felt blazing inside of him like a beacon.

She turned to look at him and noticing him staring at her in rapturous awe, she frowns a little in confusion though a small smile plays on her lips.

“What is it?” she asks.

“It’s you.” he breathes with a disbelieving smile.

Kenna smooth’s her hair down a little self-consciously. “What are you talking about?”

He jumps from the bed and rushes too excitedly, kneeling beside her. She looks down with a perplexed look on her face at his erratic behaviour.

He brushes her hair from her face, placing his hand gently on her cheek.

“I’ve searched for you without even knowing it.” He laughs. “I never learnt to dance. Not after you.”

Kenna frowns, closing her eyes in confusion. “You aren’t making any sense Bash!”

“That serving boy you met. The one that made you think everyone could be free…well when I was a boy I met a wild, headstrong Scottish girl that danced with me even though she didn’t know me.”

Kenna’s eyes widen as she understands what he’s saying. She smiles then at the strangeness of it.

“Are you saying that was you?”

Bash nods with a grin. “I always wished I could dance with that girl again, and when I knew I couldn’t it felt pointless so I never learnt.”

Kenna remembers his muddy clothing, and how she hadn’t known he was the son of the king. She had talked to him the same way she would have if she did know however and she is glad of it. She had found a liberating kindness inside of her that day. She had no idea it was the man she now loved that had shown it to her.  
“You can learn now.” She says gently, holding her hand out.

 

She stands them in the middle of their chambers, smiling widely up at him and he looks down at his feet awkwardly, not knowing where to place them.

Kenna knocks his feet with hers to position them correctly and takes his hand.

“It’s easy really.” She says, and the words she thought she’d forgotten flood back to her as she speaks to the same bright green eyes as she had all those years ago. “You just copy me.”

 

So they dance and twirl clumsily together. She tries to teach him properly at first, and he does pick it up, as he always learnt quickly. But soon it dissolves and they prance and jump around, as giddy as they were as children.

Kenna spins around him and he claps, her hair whipping into her face, and all around them is a sudden ecstatic rush of movement and memory.

Bash realises he should have known it was her. He sees the same brightness in her, even here in the night. He knows he was always destined for the sunshine of her, for the grace of her.

And he is never going to forget it again (though he might forget some of the steps to this dance)


End file.
